Data storage systems are arrangements of hardware and software that include one or more storage processors coupled to arrays of non-volatile storage devices, such as magnetic disk drives, electronic flash drives, and optical drives. The storage processors service storage requests, arriving from host machines (“hosts”) which specify files or other data elements to be written, read, created or deleted, for example.
Data storage systems utilize electrical power to operate the electronic data storage systems, as well as for air handling and air conditioning systems to remove the heat generated by the operation of the data storage systems. Individual data storage drives in data storage systems may be accessed by a host at any time, and as a result the data storage drives may be left in a power-on state even during times when there are few or no data storage requests, in order to be available for host requests.